In Japan, the story of the 47 ronin is so central to the country’s national identity that a
special word exists for the act of retelling it: Chushingura.

The Hollywood-backed
47 Ronin takes so many liberties with the legend that a different term comes to mind, one
better-suited to the involvement of American actor Keanu Reeves: “bogus.”

Japanese audiences have been slow to embrace the version of the story that, while heavy with
computer-generated imagery, offers Reeves as a previously unsung “half-breed” accomplice.

Meanwhile, U.S. audiences are being deliberately misled to think he is the star — a high-stakes
bait-and-switch sure to backfire on the narrative-stiff but compositionally dazzling
production.

In the hands of director Carl Rinsch (The Gift),
47 Ronin rivals the epic martial-arts films of Tsui Hark or Zhang Yimou in terms of sheer
spectacle.

But, as the budget crept ever skyward, reportedly reaching $225 million, the Universal marketing
department shifted into panic mode. It opted to disguise the fact that the true heroes of the epic
Japanese story are Japanese and positioned Reeves’ character — described as the shameful “love of
one night” between an English sailor and a peasant girl — as a ploy to attract a wider
audience.

Like all versions of the Chushingura story,
47 Ronin recounts the tragic Ako incident (spoilers ahead), during which Lord Asano (Min
Tanaka) was forced to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide, after illegally striking an unarmed royal
guest — leaving the 47 samurai who had been under his command without a master.

After more than a year adrift, these ronin (as disgraced samurai are known) returned, staging a
daring night raid in which they took their revenge, vindicated their master and were forced to
sacrifice their own lives as punishment.

Hiroyuki Sanada plays Oishi, leader of the desperate group of ronin, who turns to mysterious
stranger Kai (Reeves) for help in planning the coup. Although Rinsch shows no great strength in
working with actors, he can build a set piece on par with those of directors decades more
experienced.

Long before Asano has been given the chance to publicly disembowel himself (an act that, like so
much of the bloodletting, is “tastefully” left off-screen), Kai has already slain a rampaging
computer-generated monstrosity and faced off against a 10-foot silver-armored samurai.

The key differences among most versions of Chushingura comes in the speculated motives behind
Asano’s initial attack upon his rival in the palace — the act that sets the tragedy in motion. To
this fantasy-infused telling, Rinsch introduces the notion of witchcraft, casting Rinko Kikuchi as
a deliciously evil witch.

Anything that might look cool when rendered by the industry’s finest special-effects houses is
fair game, whether that means the witch conjuring iridescent spiders out of thin air or
transforming herself into a three-dimensional dragon.

But the film struggles to grab and maintain viewers’ interest, whether they know the underlying
legend or not.